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ALTHOUGH FACE-TO-FACE SESSIONS ARE AN ACCEPTED PART OF CHILD and adolescent analyses, they are not generally considered to be an acceptable way of analyzing adults unless these patients are thought to be psychotic or bordering upon it. In certain cases, however, the use of face-to-face meetings would seem to be not only appropriate but indeed more useful in working out analytic problems than the more traditionally acceptable methods. In the case of Alice, face-to-face sessions eventually proved to be a turning point in the endless cycle of regression and childlike behavior that stood in the way of her resolving a depression of infancy. While her problems were peculiarly suited to this technique, its apparent success suggests that it might be more widely used in facilitating the analysis of depressive elements from childhood which manifest themselves as problems of negativism and masochism and pose a threat of a negative therapeutic reaction.
The controversy over face-to-face sessions was present at the time Freud (1913) first wrote about his own approach: "I know